TREASUREISLAND3_012_LH.JPG Tony Hall at today's board meeting while members vote on a closed or public session concerning his job. Photographed by Liz Hafalia on 10/12/05 in San Francisco, California. SFC Creditted to the San Francisco Chronicle/Liz Hafalia less

TREASUREISLAND3_012_LH.JPG Tony Hall at today's board meeting while members vote on a closed or public session concerning his job. Photographed by Liz Hafalia on 10/12/05 in San Francisco, California. SFC ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia

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Tony Hall leaving the board meeting after officially being terminated from his job as executive director of the Treasure Island development authority. Photographed by Liz Hafalia on 10/12/05 in San Francisco, California. SFC less

Tony Hall leaving the board meeting after officially being terminated from his job as executive director of the Treasure Island development authority. Photographed by Liz Hafalia on 10/12/05 in San Francisco, ... more

Embattled Treasure Island chief Tony Hall was fired without cause Wednesday, following a raucous meeting of his board of directors who refused to discuss their reasoning and made the decision behind closed doors.

The move by the island's seven board members -- who were either appointed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom or serve at his pleasure and four of whom work in his administration -- comes as Hall has been engaged in a public battle with the mayor and city officials over the fate of the former Navy base.

In recent weeks, Hall publicly questioned whether Newsom's office and the island's board were dealing firmly enough with the prospective developers who are in negotiations with the city to transform the land into a commercial and residential hub.

Hall, a former member of the Board of Supervisors, has also come under fire over his management of the island's finances.

But the feud culminated Wednesday at City Hall with Hall's firing, effective immediately, and approved, according to sources close to the island's board of directors, with a 6-1 vote.

"The board has determined that it is in the best interest for Treasure Island ... to release Tony Hall as executive director," said Treasure Island Development Authority board President Claudine Cheng as she read from a written statement to announce the decision at the close of the three-hour meeting in City Hall.

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An angry crowd that had gathered for the meeting shouted profanities, cursed and hissed at board members, calling them "political hacks," "cowards" and "spineless."

Last year, Newsom appointed then-Supervisor Hall to oversee the day-to-day operations on the island as part of a strategic move that freed Hall's seat on the board and allowed the mayor to name his political ally Sean Elsbernd to the post.

On Wednesday, Newsom said from his office that he had made a mistake.

"The bottom line is I recommended that Tony Hall be appointed to the Treasure Island authority," Newsom said. "Clearly, I made a mistake, and I take responsibility for that mistake, and I'm accountable for that mistake. Period."

Hall's $160,000-a-year contract was set to expire in 2008. Instead, he will be paid for 30 more days on the job, though he is stripped of his duties. He also will receive a $254,500 severance package for salary and health benefits, as well as thousands more in a pension.

"This is absolutely a phenomenal project, and it still can be if it's done right," Hall said to reporters after he was fired, speaking about the island's redevelopment. "And I don't know if the mayor's got that kind of intelligence around him to get this done right. I was here to help him do it. I was probably the only one who spoke the truth."

Hall's termination leaves unanswered questions about who is now in charge of the former base. Board members did not make it clear during their meeting exactly who was running the day-to-day operations of the island, only that it was no longer Hall.

Outside the meeting, however, members said the city's Redevelopment Agency would be in charge on an interim basis.

The Treasure Island Development Authority, which was created in 1997 by state law, manages the redevelopment of the land and has oversight of the transfer of ownership of Treasure and Yerba Buena islands from the Navy, which is expected to happen in 2008.

Newsom said he did not know who would be next in line for Hall's job.

"The island was not operating as it should," he said. "We need an executive director that can work with the city attorney's office, the controller's office, my office and the (Treasure Island) board. ... I was truly hopeful that the executive director would work well with the agency, and that wasn't the case."

Hall has accused the mayor's office of cutting a sweetheart deal with lobbyist and major Democratic Party donor Darius Anderson to extend Anderson's development rights on the island. Anderson, who helped raise money both for Hall when he was a supervisor and for Newsom, fired back by saying Hall tried to get his personal lawyer a lucrative job to lobby for Anderson's development.

At the start of Wednesday's meeting, Hall requested that the board conduct their discussion publicly on whether to fire him, rather than privately in closed session as most government bodies do when deciding personnel matters. And nearly all of the dozens of island residents who addressed the board implored members to discuss the subject in public.

The push, however, seemed to leave most board members confused. For much of the meeting, they made dizzying motions to retreat into closed session, remain in public and discuss the matter or to consult labor attorneys for advice. In the end, only two members, both of whom do not work for the mayor, voted to hold the discussion in public.

A vocal Newsom critic, Supervisor Chris Daly, whose district includes Treasure Island and who sits on the island's board as an ex-officio member, charged during Wednesday's meeting that the board served as little more than a tool for the mayor.

"I'm disappointed that you are not voting your conscience, but that you are voting how you are told," he told members before they went into closed session.

Dozens of island residents spoke in favor of keeping Hall on the job and praised him for bringing a sense of direction to the former base.

"This isn't someone who is under indictment and who has been found guilty of some crime. The only crime I have been able to determine is speaking your conscience," Desmond Crises, who has lived on the island for six years, told the board. "If speaking your conscience is something that gets you dismissed from your job, then I'm not sure I'm very proud to be here today."

After the meeting, when asked whether he planned to sue, Hall said he was "not a litigious type of person."